At what age should children be taught to dive? PADI does a Bubblemaker course from age 8, with Open Water qualifications available for those over 10 but does this mean it is safe to let youngsters into the water?

I have to declare my own position here; I have four children between 11 and 19. The eldest two gained their Advanced Open Water at ages 12 and 15, beginning at Gildenburgh (an unprepossessing quarry near Peterborough that boasts visibility of almost 3 feet) and ending in the Red Sea. We were still newly qualified and full of enthusiasm for this adventure we were so keen to share with our children but in reality, while they were in the water we couldn't relax enough to enjoy our own diving. Even when the 12 year old was in the care of the local DiveMaster, we had to chase after him as he dutifully followed the DM past 18 metres, 20 metres, 22 ... whether the DM forgot he was with a Junior or was just careless, we don't know but from then on we made sure they dived with us.

That was the one and only dive trip they took with us.  It's too expensive and too nerve-wracking for us to repeat the trip - besides, we selfishly like our week away just the two of us. However, there have been cries of "Unfair" from the younger two because they have not been given the same opportunity to learn to dive. Damn right, they haven't. The UK's waters are cold. When you're cold you become miserable and you start making mistakes. When we were newbies, we charged in and enjoyed everything. Some hundreds of dives later, we have both had a few hair-raising adventures that have added to the enjoyment and our experiences but have also made us keenly aware of the dangers that are out there, particularly ones that involve being cold. Crap visibility, too, is not something I want to share with my carefully nurtured off-spring. Moreover, children, especially those below 15, are nowhere near as strong as an adult and cannot necessarily fin themselves out of currents or hang on to shotlines in difficult conditions. That said, I've dived with some staggeringly mature and strong teenagers before and they are a credit to the sport.

Everyone has a different attitude to risk. Legislation has too heavy a hand and will happily throttle all the fun out of life until we are constrained to little pods from which we can't escape to injure ourselves. Or enjoy life. So you need to find where you are happy and my personal compromise is to teach the children to dive where it is warm, free from currents and the visibility is greater than 20 metres. That's merely where I am comfortable with the risk. Yours will be different.